This is a journal of discovery of an ExPat living in Boquete Panama. The posts are opinions, experiences and observations. Thousands of people read this blog each day. I welcome your feedback, comments and opinions.

Happy Fourth of July

Digest this and you might choke on the toxic hotdogs and poison Cola this Independence Day.

Statement from Edward Snowden in Moscow
by Edward Snowden

One week ago I left Hong Kong after it became clear that my freedom and safety were under threat for revealing the truth. My continued liberty has been owed to the efforts of friends new and old, family, and others who I have never met and probably never will. I trusted them with my life and they returned that trust with a faith in me for which I will always be thankful.

On Thursday, President Obama declared before the world that he would not permit any diplomatic “wheeling and dealing” over my case. Yet now it is being reported that after promising not to do so, the President ordered his Vice President to pressure the leaders of nations from which I have requested protection to deny my asylum petitions.

This kind of deception from a world leader is not justice, and neither is the extralegal penalty of exile. These are the old, bad tools of political aggression. Their purpose is to frighten, not me, but those who would come after me.

For decades the United States of America has been one of the strongest defenders of the human right to seek asylum. Sadly, this right, laid out and voted for by the U.S. in Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is now being rejected by the current government of my country. The Obama administration has now adopted the strategy of using citizenship as a weapon. Although I am convicted of nothing, it has unilaterally revoked my passport, leaving me a stateless person. Without any judicial order, the administration now seeks to stop me exercising a basic right. A right that belongs to everybody. The right to seek asylum.

In the end the Obama administration is not afraid of whistleblowers like me, Bradley Manning or Thomas Drake. We are stateless, imprisoned, or powerless. No, the Obama administration is afraid of you. It is afraid of an informed, angry public demanding the constitutional government it was promised — and it should be.

I am unbowed in my convictions and impressed at the efforts taken by so many.

Edward Joseph Snowden

Monday 1st July 2013

Whistleblower Edward Joseph Snowden is a US former technical contractor for the National Security Agency (NSA) and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) employee who leaked details of top-secret US and British government mass surveillance programs to the press.

You might also want to re-read this seditious document.

The Bill of Rights: A Transcription

The Preamble to The Bill of Rights

Congress of the United States
begun and held at the City of New-York, on
Wednesday the fourth of March, one thousand seven hundred and eighty nine.

THE Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution.

RESOLVED by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, two thirds of both Houses concurring, that the following Articles be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States, as amendments to the Constitution of the United States, all, or any of which Articles, when ratified by three fourths of the said Legislatures, to be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of the said Constitution; viz.

ARTICLES in addition to, and Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, proposed by Congress, and ratified by the Legislatures of the several States, pursuant to the fifth Article of the original Constitution.

Note: The following text is a transcription of the first ten amendments to the Constitution in their original form. These amendments were ratified December 15, 1791, and form what is known as the “Bill of Rights.”

Try the Fourth Amendment for some more indigestion

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Amendment II

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Amendment III

No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Amendment V

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Amendment VI

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

Amendment VII

In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Amendment X

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Amendments 11-27

Note: The capitalization and punctuation in this version is from the enrolled original of the Joint Resolution of Congress proposing the Bill of Rights, which is on permanent display in the Rotunda of the National Archives Building, Washington, D.C.

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Comments

For the record, the word “privacy” doesn’t appear in the Declaration of Independence, nor anywhere in the Constitution. It’s difficult at this late date to divine whether the authors of those documents had any real notion of the term or thought it worth protecting.
When Putin has to explain to the West (yes, shame on all of them) what democracy really is…its bad. We all heard Bush explaining that we all are being watch and we agreed. So… what did Snowden do wrong? Its yesterday’s news. Why is the U.S. hunting him down?
P.S. I was born and raised in Moscow.

Olga, you are of course correct that the U S Bill of Rights does not specifically refer to a right to privacy. However the fourth amendment does imply one in that it requires probable cause and a warrant bot dig into someone’s life.

Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

It would seem the logical extension of tis would precluded electronic eavesdropping without a warrant and proable cause.

I think Snowden might have another shoe to drop, one they are really afraid to hear announced. If not I agree it is a done deal already.

Oh please don’t try and find out, Olga dear, we don’t want you to disappear and leave us in Boquete destitute without your Huevos Rancheros! By the way, that rt.com Russian news outfit article about the southern route Cuba flight is interesting. I hope Mr. Snowden would know enough Russian by now to grow a moustache, put on a flight steward’s uniform and hide in plain sight with a coffee pot.

Completely different Olga, that is why I said as a p.s. That I was born in Moscow. RT is great. Larry King is doing a show with them. He said he had to quit his show in the U.S. because he was sick of being told what to say and what not to say.

RT News is good if you want to know what is going on in the world. Olga, the illuminati had Kennedy killed, same outfit that most all other world leaders belonged and continue to belong. Kennedy bucked the system, they killed him, the rabbit hole goes very deep, best not go there.

Guy, it wasn’t long ago that many said that about CNN, and then Fox but sadly the powers that really control things will continue to skew things their way. We are witnessing the greatest social and economic change in the history of the world. Hope and want as you may, but things will never be as they once were rather continue to get worse. This is the deception that everyone is buying all we need now is anti-Christ to further convince the world everything will be fine.

We do not understand the U.S. media because we know better, but most accept it and continue to live in their entertainment induced comas which is exactly what the media and government wants. This way they can accomplish their own schemes with little to no resistance, and they have almost done it. However, being more aware than the sheeples is only a beginning to enlightenment…there is much more to what we do not see than what we do see. Can you not admit that almost everything around us is made to look like something other than what it really is? Sounds deep I know, it’s really not, we have just been trained to see things from perspectives that do not match realities. Look at all the sheeples, perfectly content with what they see.

Well put, Noble. I’m in the middle of “Brainwashing, the Science of thought Control” by Kathleen Taylor. My son has spent years listening daily to talk radio which has blocked his ability to think for himself and taught him to hate anything and anybody they disagree with. Brainwashing manipulates thought and entire personalities in many ways; it’s not just in prisons and novels like “1984”. The bread and circuses are the same since the Roman Empire (read Taylor Caldwell’s book about Cicero), only the circuses are football and television “reality” shows and endless rounds of old You Tube comedy videos in our email mailboxes. There is an old Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera song called “Things are Seldom What They Seem”. I get Guardian headlines daily now which helps a bit, but Europe is deeply in trouble also.!

Media? Ha! Its all about the Benjamins! Same goes for politics – clearly the Snowden episode shows who is in bed with whom.
How many of you read about this? http://www.sevenyearproject.com/monument2.htm
I guarantee not one person knows about it. I have friends in Jersey City and they don’t know about it. Published in Canadian newspaper.

Guy, plus the dumbing down of the public schools, and replacing public schools with nonaccredited fundamentalist nonscience teaching brainwashing centers (Louisiana for one) Homeschool textbooks were taken over by the Reichtwing years ago. I met a homeschool teacher when I worked in a Florida tourist center. She forbade her students the internet, said it was the work of the Devil.
Texas just rewrote their “history” books to eliminate Mr. Jefferson altogether, make slavery a “good” think, virtually eliminate the civil rights struggle in the sixties. These textbooks will be sold all over the US to other states except for the ones that pay attention to the propagandizing of the nation’s children..

Sky…I see it on both sides of the aisle…with liberal dumbing down as well… many well-meaning liberal schools graduate kids with 80 IQs and tell them to go to college. The sad truth of it is…what if you have a dumb kid in your classroom? Is it fair to him/her to ask them to compete with other kids way more intellectually gifted? Is it fair to ask a geek to force himself on a football team if he can’t run without tripping over his feet? I think Germans have the right system…at some point in a child’s education they are shunted over to where their talents lie…either to college or to a trade school. Why waste a future master mechanic’s time trying to teach him/her quantum physics? SAT scores have been dropping for years and we can’t find a good assembly line person to make good cars… and yes the teacher’s we have in America are crap for the most part in public schools thanks to teachers’ unions. The government has the mentality of just one giant post office now… with the IRS enforcing the status quo. I suggest you read the “5000 Year Leap” that details so well how we Americans have detoured from our basic principles. It now comes down to demographics. Demographics will determine our future governmentally, culturally and financially. I’m very pessimistic but …hope springs eternally.